THE OCEAN VOYAGE 129 



imposing and grand on the wild waves of the ocean or 

 during a storm just below the Equator, but when one has 

 reached the sixtieth degree of South latitude, one is not 

 likely to indulge in mere sentimental or emotional im- 

 pressions. On the contrary, he is more forcibly reminded 

 of the gnawings of an empty stomach, the freezing hands, 

 the ice cold feet and the wet, frozen clothes! It is really 

 not a fable if I tell you that we were actually endangering 

 our lives in our attempts to fetch our scant meals ; they 

 were scant, because it was impossible for the cook to fill 

 the kettles more than half full on account of the terrible 

 rocking of the vessel. The biting frost, the ice coated, 

 slippery deck, strewn with fragments of rope and rig- 

 gings, which were treacherously hidden under half-frozen 

 snow, now and then a rushing billow which saturated 

 one's clothes to the skin— all this having been successfully 

 overcome on the way to the kitchen, we received there 

 the prize of our undertaking— half a cup of tea or coffee ; 

 and then we had to return with it in the same dangerous 

 maimer, and happy was he when the storm only spilled 

 half the contents of his cherished bowl, and it is needless 

 to state that tea and coffee were completely cold by the 

 time we had reached the steerage again. Similar were 

 our experiences at dinner time. The food was invariably 

 cold and too little to satisfy one's craving. In addition 

 to this you may consider the wet clothes, wet feet and 

 hands, the cutting, cold draught of the steerage in which 

 the water would at times be splashing as much as on 

 deck; then figure to yourself the soaking wet mattresses 

 and woollen blankets, which were kept in this state by 

 every new shower wave, the water of which would find 

 its way through the cracks of the deck. Imagine that, 

 whether one sits or lies down, there is absolutely no com- 

 fort, no rest, as the constant motion of the vessel requires 

 as much Btrength to keep these positions as would walk- 

 ing or standing under the same circumstances. You will 

 thus gain a slight conception of our frame of mind during 

 these unhappy days and of our great joy when we had 

 ( Jape Horn behind us. 



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